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A man who was convicted of killing a watchman colleague over a Sh2000 debt and sentenced to 43 years is smiling in freedom, thanks shoddy police investigations.
Three judges at the Court of Appeal found that police conducted “shoddy and substandard investigations” in the murder case against Julius Lesho Tengesi, relying only on tenuous circumstantial evidence and string feelings to nail him.
Tengesi had been accused of slashing his victim, Joseph Kimani Kariuki, mercilessly on the head and face, killing him before stashing his body in a gunny bag and dumping it in a river in Nyandarua.
That was in July 2007.
A postmortem report showed the deceased’s head was totally deformed with multiple cuts on the skull.
The jaw bone was deformed with loose teeth both on the upper and lower sides.
The respiratory chest wall and lungs were intact. There was massive bleeding on the brain tissue.
The pathologist handling the exercise concluded that the cause of death was due to severe head injury caused by massive trauma.
The man’s co-accused was acquitted because no circumstance directly linked him to the crime.
But on appeal, it was found that Tengesi was only suspected of the crime because they were colleagues as watchmen.
Also, when he was called to witness the body retrieved from the river, he did not express shock enough, only appeared afraid.
“[Witness] testified that he told the appellant [Tengesi] and his co-accused that the deceased’s body had been discovered in the river but they did not express any shock but looked afraid. The police then came later and took away the body together with the appellant and his co-accused,” papers read.
Another witness against the accused told court that once they retrieved, viewed and identified the body, they decided to look for Tengesi “to find out from him if he knew of the deceased’s whereabouts, and that the appellant told them that the deceased had gone to church in Gilgil and would not be coming back.”
“He stated further that, as they were questioning the appellant, they noticed that he looked frightened.”
But what killed the case were the disjointed findings by the Government Chemist when he analysed blood samples taken from the body.
He told court through his report that the blood was of type A and inferred that it matched that of the suspect, Tengesi, but did not sample the man’s blood for comparative analysis and matching.
The net effect was that “from the evidence on record, it is evident that there was no evidence directly linking the appellant with the death of the deceased,” the judges said.
“In cross examination, [the Government Chemist] reiterated that it was imperative to take samples of the appellant for comparative purposes and that further it was difficult to say whether the blood on the jacket was that of the deceased or the appellant,” the papers said.
“We dare say that the evidence of this particular witness, which the learned judge partly used to convict the appellant, was of no probative value and was worthless as he simply gave out the blood group found on the items submitted for analysis.
“We further decry the casual manner in which investigations were carried out in this matter which was extremely shoddy and substandard,” the judges said.
The judges concluded that: “We […] have said enough to show that the circumstantial evidence on record does not unerringly point towards the guilt of the appellant.” BY THE STAR